MATT HUGHES SIGNS THREE-NOVEL DEAL WITH US PUBLISHER

COURTENAY, October 18, 2005 -- Local author Matt Hughes has signed a
three-novel deal with Night Shade Books of San Francisco.

"I'll be writing three novels about a Sherlock Holmesean character named
Henghis Hapthorn who lives in Old Earth of the far, far future," said
Hughes. "Hapthorn has already appeared in six stories published in The
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, one of the venerable pulp mags of
the sf field, and fans seem to like him."

Over the course of the six F&SF stories the supremely rational Hapthorn
has been horrified to discover that his world is about to be transformed:
science and rationalism will cease to work and "sympathetic association" --
in other words, magic -- will become dominant.

"I want to explore the idea of what happens to a character who is superbly
acclimated to a particular way of life when his whole world changes
drastically," Hughes said.

The three novels -- their working titles are Majestrum, Down and Around,
and Hespira -- will not be along the lines of the trilogies that have
become so popular with sf publishers in recent years. "They'll be
stand-alone novels that have the same hero and setting. Readers won't have
to buy the first one to enjoy the second."

Night Shade Books has emerged in the past few years as one of America's
leading sf-devoted small presses. It has published novels and story
collections by major authors in the fantasy and science fiction genres,
including Graham Joyce, Iain M. Banks and Kage Baker.

Hughes is the first author to sign a three-novel deal with Night Shade.